Saturday, 4 February 2012

Treks with Rose

I was on a bit of a comedown from the heat and hype of the Erotic Meet as the club music came slowly to an end last night. The lights went on, illuminating the Green Carnation, and those of us who were still around (which was a sizeable number) went around collecting our things - including, but not limited to, plastic bags stuffed full of sex toys procured from our sojourn to their spiritual home earlier in the day. However, it was only at that point that Rose realised that one of her bags had gone missing; more unfortunately, it was a bag containing her bank cards, money, passport and train tickets - in short, everything she needed to get home.

We spread out, more and more people attempting to find it, and in the end, the manager took my number on the promise he'd call, whether or not they found the bag.

He didn't call.

Everyone went on to the afterparty, and by "everyone" I mean, you know, ten people. Elenya fell asleep on her boyfriend; John and Miss Player were... doing something or another, I was trying not to look; our host had gone to get some cock. Sorry... Coke (the drink). The rest of us had managed to procure a laptop and a dodgy printer which I managed to make work by holding its power lead and USB cable firmly in place. Through the grace of modern technology, Rose managed to print out a fairly good-quality copy of a form of ID, along with her tickets. I called the police to file a report of loss and/or theft ("Someone's nicked it," said the copper on the other end of the 'phone.) and we got a reference number.

Everyone was very kind. They all saw us out of the flat. I, for my part, pretty much insisted upon going with her - partially because she'd been staying at my house the previous night, but also because she's a friend, somebody needed to go with her and I'm an ILB, so I felt somewhat responsible. Oh, and we had twenty minutes to get her on a train to the airport. And I do like a good adventure.

So we got a rickshaw.

Okay, so yeah, it's not the ideal mode of transport. We were, in fact, looking for a taxi. But we didn't have a lot of time and a confident rickshaw cyclist was insistent that he'd get us there in time. So off we went. We didn't, obviously, get there in time, but at least we got to the station. I managed to procure a ticket and we discovered that there was another train in half an hour. After sitting on a seat which was far too cold, I finally saw Rose off onto a train and, still worrying that she might not be able to board a 'plane, I headed back to the station concourse.

It was, of course, at this point that I realised I hadn't even considered how I was meant to get home, effectively stuck in central London without any visible means of getting home at four in the morning. After dithering around for a while, I decided to withdraw £20 to see how far I could get in a taxi that wasn't attached to a bicycle. I got as far as a bus station from where I managed to get on a bus that took me to a place ten minutes from my house. I was home by a very respectable 5:30am. A text from Rose confirming that she would be allowed to get on the flight alleviated any worries that may have been afflicting my brain, which was shutting down anyway.

I went back to running over the positive points of the previous two days in my head. There were many, but I won't list them here because this post is too long anyway. It didn't take me long to fall asleep, but it did take me a much more sizeable amount of time to wake up this morning. And hey, at least a dash through London in the dead of night makes an interesting day a bit more interesting. Add that to the mix and I've got plenty to remember.